May 2022

VOlUME 05 ISSUE 05 MAY 2022
Examiner Roles and Language Use in Examiners’ Reports
1Rita Akele Twumasi , 2Joseph Benjamin Archibald Afful
1Department of Communication Studies, University of Cape Coast
2Department of English, University of Cape Coast
DOI : https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v5-i5-39

Google Scholar Download Pdf
ABSTRACT

The thesis examiner’s report is an evaluation of a thesis, which includes dialogic and evaluative elements. The purpose of the study was to investigate the roles that examiners adopt for themselves and the language use in examiners’ reports on MPhil theses submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, University of Cape Coast. The study purposively selected 100 theses examiners reports from four disciplines. The study revealed that examiners adopted eight different roles in the reports. Another key finding of the study was that evaluator role was most frequent, and the least frequently occurring role was Institutional role. Again, examiners employed imperatives, personal pronouns, and adjectives in their adopted roles. The findings of the study serve to create an awareness for explicit guidelines for both fresh and experienced examiners in the task of postgraduate thesis examination.

KEYWORDS:

feedback, thesis examiners’ reports, examiner roles, examiner judgement,language use

REFERENCES

1) Adika, G. S. K. (2015). Credibility and accountability in academic discourse: Increasing the awareness of Ghanaian graduate students. Practice and Theory in Systems of Education, 10(3), 227-244.

2) Afful, J. B. A. (2009). Advanced academic literacy and the role of academic editors in research writing. Nebula, 6(4), 19-39.

3) Afful, J. B. A. (2020). The discourse of thesis assessment reports in a disciplinary community at the University of Cape Coast: An exploratory study. International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies, 9(1), 117-134.

4) Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing, (Abridged Edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

5) Ballard, B. (1996). Contexts of judgement: An analysis of some assumptions identified in examiners reports on 62 successful PhD theses. A paper presented at the 1999 Conference on Quality in Postgraduate Research—Is it happening? Adelaide, 18-19 April.

6) Becher, T. (1993). Graduate education in Britain: The view from the ground. In B. R. Clark (Ed.), The research foundations of graduate education (pp. 115-153). Britain: University of California Press.

7) Bhatia, V. K. (1997). Genre-mixing in academic introductions. English for Specific Purposes, 16, 181-195.

8) Bhatia, V. K. (2008). Genre analysis, ESP and professional practice. English for Specific Purposes, 27, 161-174.

9) Bitzer, E. (2014). Learning the language of the doctorate: Doctorateness as a threshold concept in doctoral literacy. Per Linguam, 30(3), 39-52.

10) Brown, D. H. (2004). Language assessment: Principles and classroom practices. New York: Pearson.

11) Bruno, I. & Santos, L. (2010). Written comments as a form of feedback. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 36, 11-120.

12) Chappuis, S. & Chappuis, J. (2008). The best value in formative assessment. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 14-18.

13) Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

14) Fløttum, K. (2012). Variation of stance and voice across cultures. In K. Hyland & C. Sancho Guinda (Eds.), Stance and voice in written academic genres (pp. 218-231). United Kingdom: Palgrave.

15) Golding, C., Sharmini, S., & Lazarovitch, A. (2014). What examiners do: What thesis students should know. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(5), 563-576.

16) Gray, B. & Biber, D. (2012). Current conception of stance. In K. Hyland & C. Sancho Guinda (Eds.), Stance and voice in academic genres (pp. 15-33). New York: Palgrave.

17) Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edition). London: Arnold.

18) Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd ed.). London: Arnold.

19) Hansford, B. C. & Maxwell, T. W. (1993). A Master’s degree program: Structural components and examiners’ comments. Higher Education Research and Development, 12(2), 171-187.

20) Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.

21) Hedgcock, J., & Leftkowitz, N. (1994). Feedback on feedback: Assessing learner receptivity to teacher response in L2 composing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 141-163.

22) Holbrook, A. Bourke, S. Lovat, T. & Dally, K. (2004a). Qualities and characteristics in the written reports of doctoral thesis examiners. Australian Journal of Education and Developmental Psychology, 4, 126-145.

23) Holbrook, A. Bourke, S. Lovat, T. & Dally, K. (2004b). An investigation of inconsistencies in PhD Examination decisions. A paper presented at the Annual Conference of AARE, Melbourne, 28 November -2 December, 2004.

24) Holbrook, A., Bourke, S., Fairbairn, H., & Lovat, T. (2007). Examiner comment on the literature review in PhD. theses. Studies in Higher Education, 32(3), 337-356.

25) Hyland, F. & Hyland, K. (2001). Sugaring the pill: Praise and criticism in written feedback. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 185-212.

26) Hyland, K. (1995). The author in the text: Hedging scientific writing. Hong Kong Papers in Linguistics & Language Teaching, 18, 33-42.

27) Hyland, K. (2000). Disciplinary discourse: Social interactions in academic writing. London: Longman.

28) Hyland, K. (2002). What do they mean? Questions in academic writing. Text, 24(4), 529-557.

29) Johnston, S. (1997). Examining the examiners: An analysis of examiners’ reports on doctoral theses. Studies in Higher Education, 22(4), 461-470.

30) Ketabi, S. & Ketabi, S. (2014). Classroom and formative assessment in second/ foreign language teaching and learning. Theory and Practice Language Studies, 4(2), 435-440.

31) Kiley, M. & Mullins, G. (2004). Examining the examiners: How inexperienced examiners approach the assessment of research theses. International Journal of Educational Research, 41(2), 121-135.

32) Kosonen, R. (2014). Evaluation in preliminary examiners’ statements. Unpublished MA thesis. University of Helsinki.

33) Kroll, B. (2003). Exploring the dynamics of second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

34) Kumar, V. & Kumar, M. (2009). Recursion and noticing in written feedback. European Journal of Social Sciences, 12(1), 94-99.

35) Kumar, V. & Stracke, E. (2007). An analysis of written feedback on PhD thesis. Teaching in Higher Education, 12(4), 461-470.

36) Kumar, V. & Stracke, E. (2011). Examiners’ reports on theses: Feedback or assessment. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 10, 211-222.

37) Kyvik, S., & Thune, T (2015). Assessing the quality of PhD dissertations: A survey of external committee members. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(5), 768-782.

38) Lessing, A. (2009). The examination of research for dissertations and theses. Acta Academica, 41(1), 255-27.

39) Lewy, A. (1990). Formative and summative evaluation. In H. Walberg, & G. Haertel (Eds.). The International Encyclopedia of Educational Evaluation (pp. 26- 28). London: Pergamon Press.

40) Lovat, T., Holbrook, A., & Bourke, S. (2008). Ways of knowing in doctoral examination: How well is the doctoral regime? Educational Research Review, 3, 66-76.

41) Lovat, T., Holbrook, A. & Hazel, G. (2002). What qualities are rare in examiners’ reports? In Proceedings of Australian Association for Research in Education 2001 Conference. Retrieved from http://www.aare.edu.au /01pap/lov01589.htm.

42) Lunenburge, F. C. & Irby, B. J. (2008). Writing a successful thesis or dissertation: Tips and strategies. London: Sage.

43) Lynch, T. (2014). Writing up your PhD: Qualitative research. English Language Teaching Centre, University of Edinburgh.

44) Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac¬millan.

45) Mauranen, A. (1996). Discourse competence: Evidence from thematic development in native and non-native texts. In E. Ventola & A. Mauranen (Eds.), Academic Writing: Intercultural and textual issues (pp. 195-230). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

46) Mullins, G. & Kiley, M. (2002). It’s a PhD, not a Nobel Prize: How experienced examiners assess research theses. Studies in Higher Education, 27(4), 369-386.

47) Ngula, R. S. (2017). Epistemic modal verbs in research articles written by Ghanaian and international scholars: A corpus-based study of three disciplines. Brno Studies in English, 43(2), 5-27.

48) Nightingale, P. (1984). Examination of research theses. Higher Education Research and Development Journal, 3(2), 137-150.

49) Paltridge, B. & Starfield, S. (2007). Thesis and dissertation writing in a second language: A handbook for supervisors. London: Routledge.

50) Pitkethly, A. & Prosser, M. (1995). Examiner’ comments on international context of PhD theses. In C. McNaught & K. Beattie (Eds.), Research into Higher Education: Dilemmas, directions and diversion. (pp. 129-136). Melbourne: Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.

51) Petch-Tyson, S. (1998). Reader/writer visibility in EFL persuasive writing. In S. Granger (Eds.), Learner English on computer (pp. 107-118). New York: Longman.

52) Quirk, R. & Greenbaum, S. (1973). A university grammar of English. England: Pearson Education Limited.

53) Reid, J. (1994). Responding to ESL students’ texts: The myths of appropriation. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 273-292.

54) Sanli, O., Erdem, S., & Tefik, T. (2013). How to write a discussion section? Turkish Journal of Urology, 39(1), 20-24.

55) Sankaran, S., Swepson, P., & Hill, G. (2005). Do research thesis examiners need training?: Practitioner stories. The Qualitative Report, 10(4), 817-835.

56) Schulze, S. & Lemmer, E. M. (2019). The administration of the doctoral examination at South African higher education institutions. South African Journal of Higher Education, 33(2), 180-194.

57) Simpkins, W. S. (1987). The way examiners assess critical thinking in Educational Administration theses. Journal of Educational Administration, 25(2), 248-268.

58) Starfield, S., Paltridge, B., Bourke, S., & Fairbairn, H. (2015). Understanding the language of evaluation in examiner report on doctoral theses. Linguistics and Education, 31, 130-144.

59) Starfield, S., Paltridge, B., McMurtrie, R., Holbrook A., Kiley, M., & Fairbairn, H. (2017). Evaluation and instruction in PhD examiner reports: How grammatical choices construe examiner roles. Linguistics and Education, 42, 53-64.

60) Stracke, E. & Kumar, V. (2010). Feedback and self-regulated learning: Insights from supervisors’ and PhD examiner reports. Reflective Practice, 11(1), 19-32.

61) Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

62) Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students. Michigan: Michigan University Press.

63) Thompson, G. (2014). Introducing Functional Grammar (3rd ed). London: Routledge.

64) Tinkler, P. & Jackson, C. (2004). The doctoral examination process: A handbook for students, examiners and supervisors. United Kingdom: Open University Press.

65) Tonks, A. J. & Williams, A. S. (2018). Identifying unmet training needs for postgraduate research students in the Biomedical Sciences through audit of examiners’ reports. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 13, 169-191.

66) Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. London: Harvard University Press.

67) Wisker, G. & Robinson, G. (2014). Examiner practices and culturally inflected doctoral theses. Discourse: Studies in Cultural Politics of Education, 35(2), 190-205.

VOlUME 05 ISSUE 05 MAY 2022

Indexed In

Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar